By Lynn Whyatt – RRR Network Story-Teller
Isolation is a concept many in rural, regional, and remote communities are familiar with. It can be defined as “making a person feel or be alone or apart from others” and is often attributed as the cause of many economic or wellbeing issues across the regions. How, then, would you react if someone suggested you could accept and even embrace the isolation? Tanya Kitto, the self-proclaimed Director of All Things Office & Life at Kitto Ag, shares her take on isolation and her version of life from the family farm 95kms east of Geraldton.
Having declared at the age of 16 that she wanted to marry a farmer, it was meant to be when she fell in love with her husband Robert while working at a farm machinery dealership. When she moved to his family farm, she was ready for the spaciousness and freedom of not having to work for someone else, both vital elements that allowed Tanya to flourish for the last 26 years.
The isolation of living in the regions is often countered through a strong involvement in community life. Regional people, predominantly women, often feel pressured to take on more and more responsibility leading them to overextend themselves for the sake of family or community wellbeing. In a refreshing albeit surprising contrast, Tanya affirmed that she understands her capacity and does not apologise for saying no. Between running the family farm and being a mum, Tanya already felt she did not have capacity to regularly participate in events or groups in neighbouring towns.
The wakeup call came when she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease nine years ago. Forced to pause, she focused on survival, learnt about over-giving, and gained the ability to “stay true to what it is that I need to do for me, my family, and my immediate situation to be able to thrive.”
For Tanya, the focus inward amongst the isolation is her chosen version of life. For her, community is not comprised of proximity to neighbouring houses or towns but is rather chosen. Attending events and retreats across Australia were transformative experiences that led Tanya to start building her networks of her people, some of whom are rurally based while others are not. A “perfectly ideal” blend of people over east and down south is Tanya’s community, her support network. Tanya encourages other RRR women: “don’t be afraid to look beyond what is in front of you.”
While Tanya’s community reaches far and wide, she does still appreciate the open-hearted people in her rural community who are living their own expression of life yet maintain a “deep understanding of each other’s experiences purely and simply through their own.” Part of that experience of farming in the Mid West is the progressive and all-encompassing hard work to navigate the challenges of the dry sands. It takes a lot of rain, but the reward of seeing the grain that can actually be grown, the food that can be produced on the land where they live, is the real magic and satisfaction of the experience.
Farmers and the ag industries are so important in our regions across WA. The land not only provides food but also nourishes in a different way. “Nature is the healer of so many ills…the mind, the body, the spirit…so much can be better once you’ve been outside in the sunshine, the breeze, the rain, whatever weather except the flies, not the flies.” The land gives abundance, and Tanya reminds us that we must also give back to the land.
Tanya’s family farm is entering its next chapter since the passing of her father-in-law 18 months ago. In this transitional stage from a patriarchy to the new generation, Tanya has begun replanting areas of the farm with trees and flowers. “The land needs the women to be on it because we are vital to the flourishing of it, of the land, of agriculture and of food and of life in general,” Tanya laments when she hears of women leaving the regions. She believes that women bring something to the land that men just cannot bring, clarifying that it is not about being above or better than the masculine, but bringing a different and healing aspect in the feminine.
Tanya encourages women to embrace the physicality of being on the land, not necessarily in the traditional farming sense of being out in the paddock planting the crop, but by simply being. Embracing the power of being, of sitting on land with the best intentions for the land and for everything can bring about so much healing without the acts of going and doing. Women have a medicine of their own simply in being here, a core belief that Tanya hopes to support other rural women to embrace. While this is how Tanya lives her life, she is understanding of, and grappling within herself, the fear of actually being seen in the full “Woo-Woo way of life” that she loves. Tanya’s next chapter involves embracing the feminine flow and helping women change their mindsets to be able to see their own beauty.
One of my favourite questions to ask during an interview is: “If you could say something to every RRR woman across WA, whether that be through a massive megaphone or a gentle whisper, what would it be?” Tanya’s response was: “It’s the whisper. It’s always the whisper. The magnificence of you is simply in the being. There is no need to do. Simply being is actually enough, and that is magnificent beyond your dreams.”
Tanya’s reflections on farming and the feminine remind us just how connected we really are to the land in a delicate balance. Nature provides us with healing elements, and we are also tasked with tending to its needs. While we can sometimes feel overwhelmed or too hard on ourselves, Tanya’s Woo-Woo way of life suggests that the bravest thing we can do when in doubt is embrace who we really are, and sometimes that is enough.